A Look-Up Resource for International Genealogical Research

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You are the 997213 visitor to this page since April 19, 1997.

This page was last updated on Saturday, 30-Jul-2011 13:12:48 MDT. Each page of Books We Own is updated separately. For the latest update information, go to the page in question.

What is Books We Own?

Books We Own is a list of resources owned/accessed by individuals who are willing to look up genealogical information and e-mail or snail mail it to others who request it. This is a free service - volunteers may ask for reimbursement of copies and postage if information is provided via snail-mail. The project began in 1996 as a way for members of the ROOTS-L mailing list to share their resources with one another. Today, there are over 2000 volunteers.

Resource owners are volunteers with a limited amount of time and resources to spend looking up information. Before using this service, please review helpful tips for making requests.

Jenny Tenlen has served as Books We Own webmaster since February 1998, and is the third webmaster since this project was begun.

(For more information on the Books We Own, please see the article Jana Lloyd wrote for the Rootsweb Review and BWO Volunteer Gary A. Zimmerman's article for the Fiske Genealogical Library's December 2007 newsletter.)

Would you like to volunteer your resources for this project?

New and returning contributors are always welcome! Please go to the Contributor's Page to volunteer or to change your current listings.

Would you like to request a lookup from a BWO volunteer?

Please go to the Requesting a Lookup page to get some tips on how to place a request.

In Memoriam

I wish to remember our lookup volunteers who have passed away: Cynthia Abbott, Jane McMurtry Allen, Carl Cason, Anne Cissel, Wayne F. Claire, Paul W. Cook, Elva Coombs, Shirle W. Hamrick, Charmaine Keith, Mary Magnuson, Bev Ross, Delores Sanders, Nancy C. Sieck, Esther Snively, Helen Tregillis and Ken Wiltz. These volunteers made valuable contributions to the Books We Own project, and I extend my condolences to their families.

Search the BWO website

Simply enter what you are looking for in the box below and click SEARCH.

Master Index

Visit the Library to request a lookup!
United States resources	Resources by country
Family Genealogies	General Resources

Can't find what you are looking for?

I add an average of 10 new volunteers a week, so check back often! In the meantime, you may want to explore one of these other sites that list additional lookup volunteers:

The USGenWeb Project is an excellent source of lookup volunteers - nearly every county page has at least one!

Privately Owned Publications

Cyndi's List has more lookup sites listed.

Google Books - has a large collection of public-domain histories and genealogies that can be searched online and/or downloaded as PDFs.

"American Libraries" - an Internet Archives project, providing free texts of American history and genealogies that are no longer copyright-protected.
EveryNameIndex.com - as the name implies, this site has freely-accessible lists of every-name indexes to a growing number of histories and genealogies. This is a great starting-point if you want to know if your ancestor is in a particular book before taking the time to hunt that book down. At the moment, the index includes books focusing on the midwest and eastern USA, but the site is regularly updated. [Thanks to BWO Volunteer Anne for alerting me to this resource!]

The following resource was recommended by a look-up volunteer. Please note that they do charge a small fee for look-ups. Newberry Library in Chicago - "the Newberry Library in Chicago will search many of its different collections for people for a very reasonable fee. They were able to give me a copy of my great-grandfather's obituary."

Genealogy Gateway has linked to freely-available genealogy books, most posted on Google's Book Search site.

Volunteers needed! Do you have a resource you'd be willing to do lookups from?
Then check the Contributor's Page.

©1997-2012. This Web page is sponsored on behalf of the Books We Own Project by RootsWeb. Although believed to be correct as presented, if you note any corrections, changes, additions, or find that any links provided on this page are not functioning properly please contact the BWO Webmaster for prompt attention to the matter.

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